Yes...

The #YesAllWomen hashtag got me thinking.  Which obviously, besides opening dialogue, is the point of ‘social media movements’, if you believe in that sort of thing.  I have always felt a little bit special, and in a way left out from some feminist discussions because I have been rarely victimized.  But then I remembered, I had an incident or two I could parse down to 140 characters 

Yup, that shit happened to me.  A friend of mine, in the midst of a debate about women’s rights, reached out with both heads and tried to shut me up by choking me.  At my best friend’s birthday party.  And no one did anything.  Or at least, I did something first.  You see, I don’t remember it through the lens of being victimized because my hands were free, and so I reached out and punched at his face with both hands as hard as I could until he stopped, and then told him he was fucked up and got another drink.  Because I was raised in a home where my father told me the only reason I couldn’t be a professional football player was because I ran with my tongue out, and because I grew up with a mother who never stood up for herself, so she never tolerated me not standing up for myself, and I was raised with boys who taught me how to use my body sometimes, instead of my words, because sometimes that just works better.  So, even though this incredibly fucked up thing happened, it never stuck in my head as a time of fear and helplessness.  But only because I was fine, I was able to handle it, and I had been taught to do so repeatedly in life.  

When I look back over the record of my life, there are thousands of moments like this.  Moments walking down a dark street alone at night, where I have to remind myself to throw my shoulders back confidently, and shift my keys in my hand just in case I need a weapon, and the color is as an example of my strength.  Moments when I decided it was easier to just give in to a guy’s advances and chalk it up to the story or the experience, because fighting it could have ended badly.  Moments where something happens that I shake off, and tell myself I how strong I am rather than ask why I have to wear armor in social situations.  These choices have been mine, and would not work for everyone.  Which means that I am not immune to the prevalent, violent misogyny, I have just developed coping mechanisms for the hundreds of small and large ways that my gender and sex can make me a target.  I’m like the person in a stock photo of China, wearing my air mask as I bike through the city.  I’m not breathing different air, the fact that my lungs are cleaner doesn’t mean there is not pollution.  I have just found a way to mitigate the unpleasant reality to the point where it doesn’t affect me as much.  Except that is does.  I am wearing a mask.  I have to take measures.  I know how to hold keys as a weapon, that’s called Being a Woman 101.  I have worked my whole life to feel strong, confident, and independent, and that I am and can sit here and write relatively unscathed is not an example of how fair and just the world is.  It is simply evidence of my luck and my work to not let the harsh environment I exist in control me.

Motivation, please?

A very talented friend of mine recently completed a side project. Not for a deadline or a paycheck, but just for personal improvement, shits and giggles, and because she wanted to. I beam with pride. That shit is hard to do.
For some reason, the vast majority of us humans are hard-wired to need to be forced to do anything not strictly meeting the definition of leisure. Which is pretty dumb, when we all admit we would be happier/healthier/more productive if we just did the things on our To-Do list in a timely fashion. And yet, our personal projects sit un-completed, while our netflix que swiftly empties.
Philosophers, and more specifically economists try to describe and predict human behavior with a few simplifying premises in place. One of these premises is that we are rational, which is clearly flawed. There are new theories being tossed around, trying to explain why a rational person would do irrational things, concepts like "bounded rationality" and "time inconsistency" get tossed around to explain why we basically act like teenagers when it comes time sit down and work one something without an external force pressing us.  The basic idea is that we think differently about the present than we do about the future, in terms of wants, desires, money, and expectations.  Which makes sense to anyone who ever spoiled their dinner with a sugary sweet treat because someone brought doughnuts to work.
Another theory is that of supernormal stimuli, which basically says that our recently evolved brains haven't caught up with all of the amazing, yummy, shiny things in the world, and so rather than consume them in any reasonable fashion approaching moderation, we go for it with the all-you-can-eat buffet of sugar, fat, fun, and leisure. Think eating State Fair food while sitting in a hot-tub recliner watching every season of your favorite show in a row. With beer. Who wouldn't want to do that?!
I suppose the boring answer is, an evolved adult human being with shit to do, like, walk the dog, read that book I bought 2 years ago and/or wash myself. Booooring.
This is of particular concern to me because I have a pretty large project staring me in the face, and after a short burst of enthusiasm, have completely halted production. I have, however, used up all my lives on whatever online video game was handy so, there's that. But actual work on a project that I care about and will contribute to my future in a real way? Nah, I'm going to need a deadline or, better yet, a troll with a giant mace standing behind me to get that done. And maybe take away my internet connection.
Luckily, human beings are highly adaptable creatures, meaning we can always change.  Seek out new civilizations and boldly go back to what we started, and finish it.  Good habits, though much less fun, are just as plausible as bad habits.  

On Life and Getting Older...

Not that I'd used this label before, but I had a fantastic mentor for a while. As is the trend for young people, I did not realize how good I had it until it was gone. When he died a few weeks ago, I was devastated. How strange it is, to be surprised by the effect a person has on your life. You would think I would have noticed something like that.
After the memorial, I went through the old emails he'd sent me over the years, searching for some of the humorous gems I remembered and hoping for some previously undiscovered words of wisdom. Even in death, he did not disappoint:
My point, to close, is that it really is not so much important where you start, and how long it takes, just so you get to your destination, and not when you are too old. You will have to work until 75, I am certain, so you have plenty of time to amortize your investment.
Keep going, he tells me. It is not too late, not by a long shot. It only feels like I am old because this is the oldest I’ve ever been. But don’t worry, life says with a chuckle, you are going to get older. Much, much older. You’re welcome! That is the funny dance of our modern lives, trying endlessly to hold death and old age at bay, as though they are twins rather than rivals, each stealing numbers from the other. How do we not see that old age is the prize we gain for surviving a raucous adolescence? Wrinkles are the door prize you get, in addition to the degrees, jobs, raises, pink slips, leases, relationships, and other life detritus we collect year after year.
Remember how old you felt five years ago? Or ten? Extrapolate that sensation for ten years from now, and listen to your older self when she tells you that you aren’t shit yet. You are still a baby, fumbling through life. We all are. For ever. Fumbling through life, making mistakes, feeling younger than our age and older at alternating intervals, and wondering what on earth happened the entire time.
Assume that this is just how life feels, marvel at it, and move on.

FYI...

You can totally get a hickey on your upper lip. With a properly motivated partner. It does *not* make your lips look better by any degrees.

Sometimes...

Sometimes I feel so angry, I want to punch my fist through someone's face, like in those really cool, violent movies. Like today, when I thought I was going to meet with my department chair about a job offer, but instead was asked about sexual harassment in school. I don't mind the question, but I genuinely mind the loss of time spent wondering and hoping about the meaning of this meeting. It may seem trivial, but I got my damn hopes up, and instead of getting a nice job that would fund my occasional food-and-shelter-addiction, I got to confirm that no professor has ever pressured me for sex. Not an efficient use of my time. Silver lining? At least I got to make an impression with the new dean. That's a pretty slim sliver lining, though. Compared to the possibility to almost-gainful employment. Or any of the other interesting things I had cooked up. But, alas, disappointment is old friend who doesn't care what else you have going on, he's crashing on your mental couch all week. That metaphor may not have worked.
I had hoped by this point in writing I would have stumbled across some sort of larger meaning, something about the nature of expectations or the troubling frequency of sexualization in what should be de-sexualized contexts. But instead I am wrapped up in my own frustration and self-centeredly fantasizing about a larger bank account. I may be becoming a less interesting person.
Only time will tell.

Fight or...fight

Today I have been thinking a lot about frailty and dominance. For the purpose of literary organization and making me feel less like a mental patient, I’m going to say the two are interconnected. Just looking at your average human being, I can’t help but notice how inherently weak we are. No claws or scales or even protective fur. We are all soft fleshy underbelly and veins too close to the surface. Without our intellect and ability to make and use tools, we’d be long extinct. But if you believe that there is an inherent awareness of this reality, it starts to give reason to a lot of the stranger human behaviors. Looking down at my own pale, ineffectual hands laced with blue veins, I have a desire to prove that my weakness is a deception, a front for the really violent, malicious monster that lies within and is able to both defend and attack any threat. Don’t call me soft and fleshy. So maybe that’s why we have these strong fight or flight instincts; maybe that’s why we climb into our cars and get all road rage-y and yell at the guy who won’t wave our late fees or forgets to add fries to that. We know, deep down inside, we are just a few apocalyptic losses of technology away from being knocked down to the middle of the food chain by a big bear claw. And not the yummy sugar & fat bear claw. Today I had the pleasure of being yelled at in broken English by a guy who was, ironically enough, mad at me for firmly threatening him with consequences for breaking the rules. Repeatedly. Granted, he didn’t put anyone at risk, but he broke the rules, and as the person in charge of enforcing said rules, I came down on him with a very firm, “I almost had to…be more careful next time!” So I got yelled at, by the same guy, for not being nice enough, and because I am in a customer service position, part of my job is to apologize to the angry person in the wrong for hurting their feelings. Which got me asking that one big question, why? Why is it so common to shout and stomp and belittle the person who has no direct effect on anything when we feel threatened? Why is that the first place most of us go? And why does taking that abuse make me feel like I should go snap a pencil in half, or knock down someone’s Lego tower, or crack my knuckles and stomp around in a really serious, self-important way. For the aforementioned reasons, I’m going to say our inherent frailty makes us act out, as a display of false strength. And I’m not totally wrong. That’s why we associate larger tempers with smaller people, it’s not just over compensation, it’s also compensation. Nature knows that, which is why little guys pack a big punch (I’m thinking scorpions, spiders), while the big guys can usually get away with a show of force (I’m looking at you bears and sharks). Which makes me feel 0.1% validated after being yelled at, and before being yelled at again, because the day is young. But, ya know, science is cool.

Lies I tell Myself

The more skin care products I buy, the better off I will be. Because it is only logical that each product will serve a separate, specific purpose. And each newly acquired product will, therefore, solve a separate and specific problem.

So the only logical way to be able to solve each and every of an infinite number of potential skin-care woes is to purchase every product that seems like a good idea at the time.

Right?

happy Birthday to ME

I am an annoying nostalgic person. As I mature I've found it easier to let go of the past and look to the future, but when those big milestones come around I still get caught up in the rearview.

That being said, I wanted to chronicle my favorite birthday memories as I begin my thirtieth year of being Andrea Zaney Walters.

1998 - My sophomore year of high school, Sheila and Parisa got up early to put "Happy Birthday Andrea" posters up around the whole school. At lunch time, we had a mini party in the MPR, with cupcakes, cookies, hats and blowers. Awkward though I was, I still loved all the attention and will always love Sheila for knowing how to give me a great thrill. Plus Sheila made me a mixed tape and then the three of us went to Punk Rock Karaoke and sang White Riot with Mike Ness. It was, in a way, like a bat mitzvah.

2002 - I had just been kicked out of the house by the people I thought were my best friends, and absorbed into what I know fondly refer to as a crack house (only with weed). Floundering personally, academically, and socially, I wasn't even sure anyone would do anything for my birthday. When Jenna wouldn't come pick me up from school, I was heart broken. When I finally got home, I found the whole house decorated for my surprise birthday party. Charlie had brought my favorite pizzas home from work, there was a cake with candles, drinking, debauchery, and fun. When I needed it most, I felt loved, adored, and understood. Plus, it was an awesome party.

2004 - Jealous of other people's pirate costumes on Halloween, I decided to have a pirate-themed birthday party. Jenna collected all of my presents in advance, and planned out an elaborate scavenger hunt around the house, where each clue led me to another clue, a present, and a shot. I got oh so drunk. Added bonus? Christina gave me the once-in-a-lifetime gift of letting me drunkenly cut her hair into a mullet. So. Rad.

Honorable mentions go to the year I threw a lounge party, when Scott, Bob, and grant brought by a leftover super bowl keg and wore bathrobes, and Scott gave me a bag of trinkets he bought from a homeless guy; my Buca di Beppo/Piano Piano party, where I felt like I finally had a crew of friends in Claremont; the party that should have been, when Jenna and Taylor planned a bowling/sangria surprise party for me that failed because I spent the day in the E.R; my super classy birthday with Carlo, where he bought me a dream dress, took me out to Ecco, and we celebrated at home with friends, food, and Wii karaoke.

Transformative

The question of how I was going to define and recall this year came up recently, and I decided the most accurate word to describe the last 12 months was "transformative". Which is good. Not just because Transformers (tm) are cool, but because transformation is indicative of movement, usually either growth or decay. And I'm still alive, so I vote for growth. I am no longer the person I once was, but she is still me.
From my perspective inside my own brain, all of this seems trite; to feel a renaissance of myself swelling as I teeter on the brink of my third decade seems...contrived? At the very least, convenient in a deus ex machina kind of way. And yet, after a period of increasing and accelerating disorder, I seem to have emerged fresh from the fire, my old skin peeling off to reveal a new alloy composition, stronger and more flexible that my previous incarnation. And while my old form served me well and protected me through a cavalcade of hardships, and I excited to start walking around all the time in my new skin. I want to see how this new self I've managed to grow and forge drives.
Humans seem hell bent on finding and naming critical turning points: birthdays, anniversaries, various annual holidays. The return of Saturn gives people in their late 20's a three year window to feel a revelation of some kind, and yet here I am, googleing the exact cycle of Saturn. 29.4 years. That's right around the time when everything in my life broke, and I began to rebuild from scratch.
I believe that's why we have so many holidays and milestones, so no matter when our shift happens, when our big moment hits, we'll have a larger calendar to point to and say, see, it's special because of this!

Steve Jobs vs. The Real World

Yesterday Steve Jobs died. He was fairly young, and had struggled with cancer for some time. Luckily he had the resources to prolong both his life and his career, and did so with great relish. In the wake of his passing, the world that Mr./ Jobs had a hand in creating is vibrating with new insights and adulation for him, with people from every part of the world and every walk of life calling him a genius, one of a kind, generous, maverick. Comparisons to the bible and Leonardo da Vinci have been made.

But let's be realistic here. Steve Jobs was not the only person at the cutting edge of technology. He stood on the shoulders of his scientific predecessors, and had a whole generation of peers. And he is not solely responsible for every Apple product on the market. He gets credit for innovative and phenomenal brand-making, and great marketing, but that's not really scientific genius. He had a hand in a lot of innovation, but in recent years he's worked over and with literally hundreds of other very smart individuals who made the products people gobble up so effective. It's like saying wow, those pyramids are great, and they never would exist without Pharaoh. Yeah, that may be true, but really, other people helped.

He was prominent by choice, and for business reasons; when Steve Jobs returned to Apple, to bring it back from the brink of death, he brought some new technologies and new marketing strategies, and some savvy business techniques. But, like his decision to cut Apple's philanthropic giving (and never resume it), these were not wheel-inventions. They were great forward thinking steps in the ever-higher climb towards technological Valhalla, but really what did he do? The iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Mac Books are all great products, but they all represent brands of products that have been made by other companies, many times cheaper and better. What Apple excelled at, beyond creating a whole new class of genericized trademarks, was protecting the market share they won by viciously blocking any cross-platform interaction. As an outsider, with an mp3 player, smart phone, tablet and laptop, it looks a little bit like a high-tech gang, where you have to have something with an 'i' on it to get in, or you may as well take your ball and go home. Never mind the higher quality and lower cost of some non-i products.

So what is Steve Jobs' true legacy? It is undeniable that he has left a mark, and he participated in one of the greatest technological run-ups in human history. But lately? Lately he's been a champion of consumerism, of corporate person-hood, of making money and protecting market share, and damn the cost to small business, potential innovation, and individuals. In my mind, at least, Steve Jobs' legacy is slick marketing of a product line in constant flux because features and technologies are withheld for the 'next generation', where the brand name sneakers of two generations ago are replaced with several hundred dollar technologies that children are taught to covet from infancy (if you think I'm exaggerating, just search "baby iphone" online).

At the same time, The United States finds itself at a rare moment; The Occupy Wall Street movement is gaining momentum nationally, and people are standing up for human rights of corporate rights. The people at the bottom are finally questioning why the people at the top are getting so far away. But everyone has paused, to marvel at the passing of Steve Jobs. It is indisputable that Jobs left his mark on history, but I am more interested in the history being made now, today, on the streets of American cities, by the people who work minimum wage jobs for 28 hours to buy an iPhone, or 69 hours to buy an iPad. Steve Jobs helped create the personal computer, but he didn't do it alone. He did, however, make himself a household name. But I didn't think we celebrated people for becoming world-renowned former CEOs.

Because I’m me.

Because I’m me, I waiting until the very last minute to go to the bathroom after drinking a diet coke and three glasses of water.
Because I’m me, when I got to the bathroom and saw the little tiny baby lizard, whose cousins have been making me smile all week, I tried to chase him out, afraid that he would either die trapped in the barren landscape of a semi-public restroom.
It’s not my fault that the little tiny baby lizard was stupid, ran into a corner, and accidentally got caught by me. I wasn’t trying to catch him, just corral him into the out doors, where he would be happy.
But, because I’m me, as soon as I realized I could pick him up, I did. And because I’m me, as soon as I picked him up I wanted to hold him, and considered keeping him as a pet.
Settling for the middle ground, I took the little tiny baby lizard back to my office, and tried to photograph him on my hand, which was difficult because the little tiny baby lizard moved further and further up my arm with every jarring sound or movement, of which there were many. Because I’m me.
After getting a couple of good pictures, I went to take the little tiny baby lizard back outside and set him free.
Because I’m me, I was more focused on the little tiny baby lizard’s feelings than I was on the presence of real live human people around me.
Because I’m me, I naturally forgot I was wearing the fitted skirt of the pseudo-professional, and squatted like a woman giving birth in the jungle.
Because I’m me, I didn’t notice until the little tiny baby lizard had moved to the relative safety of the near by tree that I was giving a full-on, clear view crotch shot to a pair of middle-aged women a few yards from me.
Because I’m me, and I couldn’t think of a demure escape, I simply walked back to the restroom and resumed my business. But, because I’m me, I still think I’m the reason they disapeared before I returned from the restroom.

What I mean to say is...

There is no such thing as forever. Mountains move with startling fluidity given an appropriate scope of time, which is but a blink in the context of the age of the universes, which is just one in an evolutionary series of universes, and we’ll never know if we are an early, malformed attempt at success or a singular chance formation, or just a mundane step in the path, like tadpoles with slightly shorter tails and leg buds.
So how can anyone trust, when there is no certainty, when the basis for our strongest science is conjecture, and every time we break down the elements of ourselves, we find only smaller elements. More questions.
In a way, it would make sense for all of existence as we know it to be nothing more than the labyrinth of something larger than us, beyond our comprehension. That would begin to explain the maddening parade of still further obfuscation of truth as our science reaches at singular truths and “laws” with which to restrict our reality.
Or maybe, and just as likely, it’s our problem. We always want to impose straight lines, right angles, put life and elements and everything around us into next order so that we can make statements in absolute terms, when reality is just not constructed that way.
All of the evidence we encounter in life, from the moment we start to develop our powers of observation, indicates the strict randomness of life and the propensity for rules to have exceptions.
Thus the phrase, “the exception makes the rule”.

Really, what kind of bullshit logic is that?

I need...

Someone to claim the mystery-rodent I've been babysitting at my desk for the last 5 hours

Someone to extract the water out of the carpet of the moron who thought they could repair their toilet themselves

A fat free, calorie free, non-carcinogenic, sugar free caffeine substance that tastes like candy but won't keep me up at night

Better-functioning air conditioning

A tetanus shot

Barring a tetanus shot, someone to cut the metal shavings out of my finger, so I don't get lock-jaw

Shoes whose heels last as long as I do

An intelligent staff

An eight-day week, so I can have a two-day weekend

Help with my homework

A little credit

and a nap

To Polish....

I don’t think guys realize how much time it takes to look like a put-together girl. Seriously. My fellah has something of a nail fetish, deeply enjoying perfectly painted finger and toe nails. I, personally, have found nail polish to be a temporary pain in the ass. It takes upwards of an hour to apply correctly, and never lasts as long as you like. Example? Last night I spent my evening sitting on the couch, painstakingly applying the correct coats in the correct order with drying time in between, after carefully filing them all. This morning, in the shower, three of my ten finger nails were already chipped. Granted, I am usually afflicted with chipped nails sooner than the average girl, but that’s just because I actually use my hands to do things. You know, like wash my hair, wash dishes, move things, open and close things.
My sweet fellah, seeing my ongoing frustration and noticing that I now carry three bottles of nail polish with my everywhere for touch ups, suggested I just go get me nails professionally done. Sweet of him, and the pedicure does tend to last a little longer, but I have never been able to make a manicure last more than a day or two, and then I’m shelling out $30-$50 bucks to sit still for an hour in my busy day when I could be at work, at school, doing homework, or catching up on the thousand things I never have time for because I work full time and go to grad school part time.
I know, bitch bitch bitch.
But seriously. If I cut out of my daily schedule make-up time, all nail painting time, smelly lotions and creams to keep all my parts soft and sweet smelling, the shaving, plucking, trimming, coloring, and bronzing, I could save hours every week. Literally hours. And, let the record show, I am a pretty lazy girl. I don’t do a lot of the things considered de rigueur in modern (Los Angeles) society. Frankly, I don’t see how I could fit them into my week. But everyone knows there are tons of fringe benefits to being more attractive, and many of these things are cultural indicators of success. Which I guess makes sense, because you’d have to be successful to have the time to do all this shit. But what about the woman who pursues her career forcefully? Without time spent on creams and getting an appropriate amount of beauty sleep, with out the time to maintain a strict mani/pedi waxing schedule, or even the time to make it to her bi-weekly Pilates class, because she’s busy creating an empire, conducting research, or writing journal articles. Stress and time and regular daily abuse wear down her appearance, and she unwittingly chooses between beauty and success?

Just a thought.

Lost Summer

Every time I think I've made my peace with my shitty job and my shitty work schedule, something pops up inside of me like a cranky two year old and throws a tantrum, screaming "I don't wanna!".

Seriously, I don’t wanna.

Yesterday, I miss out on some good old fashioned family fun, The Our Lady Of Lebanon festival at a park in Van Nuys. I know my fellah said it was boring, but i also know I would have loved it. Food, family, culture, singing, dancing, a chance to practice my eavesdropping on Arabic skills. What's not to love? Plus, I would have included a night cap at our adopted Uncle Milo's afterwards, for the perfect Sunday. Instead, I spent a tedious 8.5 hours sitting behind my desk, trying desperately to focus on work while checking facebook for mobile uploads from the festival every 15 seconds. Time well spent. Whoo hoo.
But I'm okay, I recovered, and I managed to have a lovely evening at home with my fellah after he came home and promised me it was a tedious and boring day. Love him for lying to me, by the way.

Now, here I am, Monday, my Friday. I should be excited. I have two days relatively work-free for school and house cleaning and general relaxation. Except that I just heard it's going to be gloriously hot when the real weekend arrives, like triple digit, pack a cooler and head to the beach hot. My stupid brain won't learn, and won't listen, and so it automatically jumps to the conclusion that I can go to the beach at least on of those lovely days. Like a fool, my frontal lobe does the happy dance at the thought of flip flops, ice cream, water-related activities, and getting the hell out of Diamond Bar for a while, while the sun is still up.

Stupid stupid stupid.

There is a very depressing, melancholy part of me that believes I'll never crawl out of the hole that is this job, that I will never go to the beach again. I had about 4 good months of summer (I mean, this is LA) and I had one beach sunset, and one pool party abbreviated by driving. And Memorial Day. Oh, sweet beautiful Memorial day. That was a good one. Bikes and garlic fries on Venice Beach. But still, I'm not even 30 yet. I need more than 3 days of summer fun to feel fulfilled. I do not feel fulfilled. I feel like a semi-nocturnal parolee, not allowed to leave my area, and especially not allowed to do anything during the light of day.

I'm not even looking for wild, wet fabulous adventures. BBQ by the pool would suit me just fine. Or even just sitting in the sun by the beach on one of those days where it's not really warm enough, but you want to be in your bathing suit anyway.

Maybe I'm being melodramatic; I mean I did get something of a Labor Day weekend, but even that was spent nocturnal, rushed, and in no way associated with summer time, unless you count my optimistic donning of my bathing suit under my clothes, followed by several hours of summer wedgies. And getting into a fight over homework. Yay 3-day reduced to 1-day weekend!

I rest my case. The universe clearly owes me a summer. I can wait, make it up to me.

Little Monsters, But Not Fred Savage

There’s a little monster inside of me, and every once in a while it gets out. It says things I know I shouldn’t, and does things I know I shouldn’t, and then in the deep dark night it sneaks back inside to hide and watch the fall out from the safety of its home in the deep dark places of my heart. I wake up in the morning ironically mournful. I feel apologetic, embarrassed, the usual; nothing out of step with a night of drinking and dancing and toe-stepping. But the little monster creates more havoc than just that. When my little monster sneaks out, and then retreats, I’m left with questioning thoughts for which I can’t seem to draw answers.
I wonder which is more true, the me that keeps the monster locked away, wrapped in chains so that it has less of a chance of escaping, or the me that watches the monster take over my voice, my mouth, my hands, my self, and retreats to the center to watch the immediate fallout and giggle like a naughty child. I wonder if there’s a middle ground, if the monster and I can learnt o co-exist. I had previously thought I’d satisfied the monster, and she had grown into a different creature that would no longer say and do such things, but she was merely napping through the placid moments of my life, waiting for an opportune moment to sneak out and reclaim her place in the spot light, even if only for one night.

I don’t have anything more to say, so THE END. I apologize for the lazy writing.

Into the deep end.

I feel like after a certain point it’s a bit cliché to talk about life and death, but since it’s all around me right now, I feel validated. The thing that seems to give people the most trouble with life and death is the randomness; a 26 year old boy can die in his sleep in a controlled environment, while a 90 year old woman who drinks and smokes can still muster up the gumption to whack neighborhood kids in her yard with a stick. It’s random.


Apparently an obnoxious desire to over analyze things is intrinsic to grad students, because a couple of us polished of beers with a discussion of the reason humans evolved to have religion, and I always come back to the need for an explanation. In ancient times, people created a deity that would explain the incompressible forces of nature; the rising sun, the changing tides, drought and earth quakes were attached to unseen actors who could be influenced and, therefore, appeased. In modern times, we’ve abandoned the fickle agricultural gods of our ancestors for monotheism, seeking to explain just one major question, why do bad things happen? This obviously covers the whole range of life experience, including but not limited to those twin events that bookend every life.


People go to their god to ask when people are born different, born at the wrong time, or not born at all. Similarly, they go to their god when someone’s life ends. Why so young, why so soon, why so slow, why so suddenly? Why at all? And what is the complicated calculus in play when it’s decided who lives and who dies, who suffers and who simply drifts away.


Some take comfort in the idea that someone else’s plan is in effect, some larger plan, too big for us to perceive, but intricate enough to make perfect sense given enough perspective. Others, I think, enjoy having someone to blame endlessly, someone to curse until the pain subsides, someone who’ll never shout back. Many people find solace in the fairy tale of a magical place where everyone you love who is good and decent gets to go, where nothing’s bad and nothing hurts and we can all have a picnic when we get there. But even the people who wholeheartedly believe in this fairy land don’t seem to be in any rush to get there…


But I digress. Because those of us who find faith in the tangible have to find solace in the same. There are no happily ever after stories of living on clouds in white robes, so we have to counsel ourselves with other things. Beer is often helpful. So is talking. Whether you believe people got to a better place, back into the cycle of life, or just into the decaying end of the matter spectrum, we all believe the pain of this life is over. The only other thing we can hold on to is the same thing we always have to hold on to when ever thing get rough, the good times.

So I guess, in conclusion and in the wake of death and pain and life, here’s to the good times.

to my religious friends, please don't be mad at my playful characterization of different systems of belief. I'm an equal opportunity offender trying to figure out my own thing.

Me Talk Good

I think I'm forgetting how to speak English. Seriously. Which is a shame, because I used to be quite verbose. When I was little I had a knack for devouring books, and the continuation of this habit gave me a great vocabulary. But lately life has contrived to give me no free time and little time for the reading and writing I’m required to do by employment or for education. And then there’s the real reason, and I say this with the caveat that I am an incredibly open minded person who used to really love this aspect of my life:

I am surrounded by non-native English speakers. At home, at school, at work, in social situations, on the phone, via email... I honestly have to actively remember incidents of conversation with native speakers. It’s gotten to the point where I noticed I was speaking broken English to a friend whose ESL English was clearly superior. What the fuck?

And I always wanted to be multi-lingual. Anyone unfortunate enough to have heard my drunken Spanish can attest is a goal I’ve yet to achieve. But this goal and my active use of Spanish and Arabic on a daily basis seems to have short-circuited the language center of my brain. I now regularly think sentences in a mixture of Arabic, Spanish and English. My family is not amused. I am not amused. If I start to dream in another language, I am out. If I start to pick up Korean, I am out. I will run away to Kentucky or Iowa, somewhere where the only thing that’s international is the House of Pancakes.

You have been warned.

I've got the Late-Twenties-Staring-At-The-Thirties Blues

If we knew, when we began, what it would be like, would we keep going? Would we continue to grow and mature and reach for each birthday, each accomplishment, each stage completed like some kind of live-action Mario Bros with crappy bosses but good graphics?

Look at the facts; the older we get, the less impressed we are with the little miracles of daily life, the more mundane our daily activities become, the more responsibilities we acquire with fewer fun and exciting new rewards. It really is all like a crappy Mario Bros game! Follow me on this one. It all starts out so new and exciting, because you’ve never seen any of this before, and each mushroom is a thrill, each minor accomplishment is high-five worthy, and the first time you best a major foe, achieve something major, the payout is phenomenal. And then you go to the next level. There are new things, it’s still interesting, but the same shit from the last stage in life doesn’t thrill you the way it used to. You need fireballs now; just jumping on your foes isn’t interesting enough. And the challenges have to become bigger, more complex to hold your interest and challenge you. But at the end you still get fireworks, you still get a sense of accomplishment, you still feel like high fiving because you are moving forward on to bigger and better things.
But this is Mario Bros/Life. Eventually, around the fifth or sixth level, you realize there’s a recognizable pattern to all of this, and you figure out how to make your way through on auto pilot. I’m not saying there aren’t still challenges, you may even have to repeat a level once in a while, but the thrill is, as the song says, gone. There are no more major surprises, you have seen everything your pixilated world can offer, and rearranging it doesn’t make it new. You still high-five after an accomplishment, but your heart’s not in it because you know there’s going to be another one in due time. And you know there’s no magic to success, you just figure out the pattern and beat it and move on. It all becomes hollow and meaningless; you’ve seen the fireworks one hundred times and are no longer impressed, and even the tiny pixilated princess doesn’t thrill you. So you just wait for it all to end, because nothing will ever take you back to that level of excitement you felt the first time you played the first level, and saw it all with new eyes.

Who knew a chubby Italian plumber in red overalls could be so dark, right? Or is that just me?

Grammar Nazi

Now that I have a cell phone, I am forced to stop complaining about most to the viral annoyances brought forcefully into contemporary culture via the Typhoid Mary that is text messaging. I now text while walking, shopping, talking, driving, etc, and begrudgingly absorb all the disgusted looks I earn, only mildly nostalgic for the days when I gave those same looks to others.

BUT I will not abide the further degradation of the English language, especially that of the written. It does not take that much longer to write "are" than "R". Are those two button clicks really going to make or break your life's efficiency? Wigger please.

The problem is the written word, and grammar in general, is already facing such shocking abuse. I have, in my still short life, seen the accepted spelling of the word "okay" shift to "ok", which while succinct, is just shamefully lazy and a clear act of submission. The shift is still not complete; I find my Mozilla browser still recognizes the full spelling as correct, and the abbreviation as incorrect. But I know Word prefers the two-letter spelling, and I can't help but always remember cartoonist Bill Watterson's story of an editor changing his text from the correct spelling of okay to the abbreviation. I know it's incredibly pretentious, but I empathize with his outrage.

For me, though, the largest outrage is the increasingly flagrant abuse of the apostrophe. Let me begin this rant by disclosing that I have often had difficulty remembering when it was appropriate to use and apostrophe with "its". You know, until I managed to just remember the rule. However, the growing use of an apostrophe when pluralizing anything is astonishing and sick-making. Honestly. It is not that difficult, we all learned this in elementary school. Apostrophes are for possession and contractions. period. Except for with it's and its, but really. There is never any need to use an apostrophe when writing the word "balls", as in "Your usage of the written word sucks balls".
Except, I guess, for the rare situation when you would write something like, "That ball's vein looks like it's going to burst." But really, how often does someone write that? This might be the first time in the history of the written word. Maybe.

I don't have any succinct way to wrap this all up. I suppose with more time I might come up with another mildly funny point, then join all my points into a neat bouquet of bitter rage and present them with a final thought, but I've been on hold with the county of Los Angeles for a full 27 minutes now, and i think my head may explode from the repetitive stress of listening to their Muzak over and over.
My whatever god they pray to have mercy on their souls. And mine.